What Does Ecclesiastes 9:6 Mean?
Their love, their hatred, and their envy have already perished, and there is no more portion for them for the ages, in all that is done under the sun.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished; neither have they any more a portion for ever in any thing that is done under the sun.THE KEY
Love, hatred, and envy are not permanent possessions; each loses its share in the world beneath the sun when the life that holds it ends.
THE MEANING
Your love, hatred, and envy have no further share in what is done under the sun when your life ends. Even the strongest attachments fall within mortality’s boundary.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that a powerful attachment can secure a lasting claim on the living world gives way: love, hatred, and envy perish, and their share in under-sun life ends.
THE ROOT
חֵלֶק
cheleq
GROWS FROM
חלק
chalaq
To divide, allot, or apportion.
The root gathers division and allotment into the word “portion”: a cheleq is a share within a whole. The verse says the dead have no further allotment in what life continues to do under the sun.
ALSO GROWS
chalaq: To divide, allot, or apportion.
חָלַק
A portion is what has been apportioned as one’s share; the dead hold no continuing allotment in under-sun activity.
chelqah: A plot of land or field parcel.
חֶלְקָה
The word gives a share the image of a bounded piece within a larger whole, fitting the verse’s limit on participation.
machloqet: A division or dispute.
מַחֲלֹקֶת
The same root can name division among people, showing how allotment and separation belong to the word’s wider family.
אָבְדָה
avadah
GROWS FROM
אבד
avad
To perish, be lost, or disappear.
“have already perished” in this verse is avadah. The form says these attachments have perished, not merely grown quiet. Paired with “no portion,” it presents both the feeling and its share in under-sun life as ended.
ALSO GROWS
avad: To perish or be lost.
אָבַד
This is the verb’s root form, carrying the sense of disappearance found in the verse.
oved: Lost or perishing.
אֹבֵד
This form describes one who is lost or perishing, echoing the verse’s language of attachments that no longer remain among the living.
avedah: A lost thing or piece of lost property.
אֲבֵדָה
The noun makes loss concrete: what once belonged to someone is no longer in their possession.
THE PATTERN
What belongs to mortal life beneath the sun passes with its allotted span.
He comes forth like a blossom and is cut off; he flees also like a shadow, and does not stand.As for humankind, his days are like grass; like the blossom of the field, so he blooms. For breath passes over it, and it is gone; and its place no longer sees it.And the world is passing away, and its craving with it, but the one who does the will of God remains for the ages.THE THREAD
Look. What I have seen is good and fair to eat and to drink, and to see the good in all his toil under the sun, the number of the days of his life which God gives him, for it is his portion.The same Hebrew word, חֵלֶק (cheleq, portion), names the living person’s share: food, drink, and the good of labor under the sun. Ecclesiastes 9:6 shows that this share belongs to the span of life and does not continue when that life ends.
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